Comments on: Syngress Response to Plagiarism in Dissecting the Hack: The F0rb1dd3n Network http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/2009/10/22/syngress-response-to-plagiarism-in-dissecting-the-hack-the-f0rb1dd3n-network/ Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:44:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Seal http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/2009/10/22/syngress-response-to-plagiarism-in-dissecting-the-hack-the-f0rb1dd3n-network/#comment-821 Seal Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:54:22 +0000 http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/?p=660#comment-821 And I do realize the contradiction between the first and last paragraph. To elaborate: I do believe Syngress will take steps to prevent plagiarized materials from being published in the future, but I don't believe that they'll fix the underlying issue of poor editing. For that reason, I anticipate that there'll be some incident in the future, though it may not necessarily be copyright-related. I don't blame the editors for that, I blame the company that has policies in place that inhibit good editing. And I do realize the contradiction between the first and last paragraph. To elaborate: I do believe Syngress will take steps to prevent plagiarized materials from being published in the future, but I don’t believe that they’ll fix the underlying issue of poor editing. For that reason, I anticipate that there’ll be some incident in the future, though it may not necessarily be copyright-related.

I don’t blame the editors for that, I blame the company that has policies in place that inhibit good editing.

]]> By: Seal http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/2009/10/22/syngress-response-to-plagiarism-in-dissecting-the-hack-the-f0rb1dd3n-network/#comment-820 Seal Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:47:46 +0000 http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/?p=660#comment-820 Reading Syngress' response, I do believe that they will take steps to prevent a repeat of this in the future, at least on a superficial level with anti-plagiarism software. But it's like anti-virus software: if you have to use it to fix a mess, it's too late. You have to stop the problem at the source, not the manifestation of it's consequences. In Syngress' case, the problem has always been bad editing. Or a lack thereof - I'm not entirely sure. I would have thought that standards might improve after they were bought out by Elsevier, but unfortunately they have not. Yes, the technical editor is the one who screwed up. But who thought that it was a good idea to let an editor who didn't even understand the most basic tenets of technical authorship have unsupervised reigns over the final product? At that level, they should of had someone more experienced by his side. Unfortunately, I don't think that Syngress is going to change it ways. Prepare for a similar incident in the future. Reading Syngress’ response, I do believe that they will take steps to prevent a repeat of this in the future, at least on a superficial level with anti-plagiarism software. But it’s like anti-virus software: if you have to use it to fix a mess, it’s too late. You have to stop the problem at the source, not the manifestation of it’s consequences.

In Syngress’ case, the problem has always been bad editing. Or a lack thereof – I’m not entirely sure. I would have thought that standards might improve after they were bought out by Elsevier, but unfortunately they have not.

Yes, the technical editor is the one who screwed up. But who thought that it was a good idea to let an editor who didn’t even understand the most basic tenets of technical authorship have unsupervised reigns over the final product? At that level, they should of had someone more experienced by his side.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that Syngress is going to change it ways. Prepare for a similar incident in the future.

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